IMEMS Seminar Series: Michaelmas Term 2022

Events in this series are listed in full below.

Unless otherwise stated, all events will take place on Wednesdays, 5.30pm (UK time) at 7 Owengate, DH1 3HB.

We encourage in-person attendance where possible (no need to book, unless otherwise stated). The option of online attendance is there for greater accessibility (please register using the link under the relevant seminar(s)).

12 October:

Music and Pictures – Real, Destroyed, Imagined – in Thirteenth-Century England: The Case of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson G 18. Dr Sean Curran (Cambridge).

The paper discusses the interactions between images, musical notation, and devotional practices in the 13th-century life of this important manuscript.

In person (no registration required) or click here to register for the webinar version.

19 October:

Inaugural meeting of the new IMEMS Research Strand Spiritual Writings from the Low Countries (1200-1550): Context, Influence and Transmission

Praying and Meditating With and Through Images in the Late Medieval Low Countries. The Case of Early Netherlandish Painting. Prof. Ingrid Falque (Université catholique de Louvain).

*Online only at 5.00pm* – please click here for more information and to register.

26 October:

Imagination and Revelation: Thought, Feeling and Vision in Medieval English Writing. Prof. Corinne Saunders (Durham).

A talk showcasing research in medieval literature and the medical humanities, focusing on imagination and revelation, mind, body, and affect.

In person (no registration required) or click here to register for the webinar version.

2 November:

The Fragrant and the Fetid: Smell and Food Practices in Mughal South Asia. Dr. Neha Vermani (Sheffield).

In person (no registration required) or click here to register for the webinar version.

9 November:

Reorienting the History of Chess. Dr Mary Franklin-Brown (Cambridge).

The talk focuses on" orientations” as they relate to the history, iconography, material culture, and literary representations of chess, highlighting a new history of early chess that attempts to correct the orientalism of earlier histories. 

In person (no registration required) or click here to register for the webinar version.

16 November:

You Say Sultan Like It's a Good Thing: Hierarchy, Slavery and Political Imaginaries in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean. Dr John Latham-Sprinkle (Ghent).

This paper discusses the portrayal of slavery, arguing that the assumption that a slave’s rise to the heights of an imperial hierarchy would be experienced positively reflects contemporary Western society’s combination of steep hierarchies and a discourse of meritocracy, rather than the ideas of historical subjects.   

In person (no registration required) or click here to register for the webinar version.

23 November: READING GROUP:

Discussion of Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, eds. Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019 (2021).

In person and online – please click here to register and to receive pre-reading materials.